February 2022

BY Neil Pattemore L ife used to be so simple when running a repair workshop; Find suitable premises, equip the workshop with some lifts and diagnostic tools, employ some technicians and open your doors to the throng of customers who were queuing up to pay you money to have their vehicles repaired. Of course, my description is very tongue-in-cheek, but fundamentally you were free to do what I have described above. When conducting these service and repair activities, you could also choose from a range of local parts suppliers who delivered several times a day to your door. “Perfick,” as David Jason used to say in the Darling Buds of May in those bygone days. As time moved on and vehicles became more sophisticated, more advanced diagnostics were needed to address the more difficult-to-find faults and the work became more related to being a computer engineer who was used to finding software or communication network faults. To support the need for the aftermarket to be able to continue to offer vehicle owners and operators a competitive choice of where and how their vehicles could be serviced and repaired, the legislator introduced regulations that ensured non- discrimination between workshops (i.e. main dealer and independent workshops) to compete on level terms. These terms are contained in the Block Exemption Regulations introduced in 2002 and revised in 2010. However, this is all under Competition Law, which makes it difficult for SMEs (e.g. an independent workshop) to challenge any non- compliance with the legislation, so the legislator put detailed repair and maintenance (RMI) requirements into Vehicle Type Approval Regulations, originally in Euro 5 legislation in 2007 (and more recently when the vehicle type approval legislation was updated and simplified in 2018), where a non- compliance challenge is supported through the type approval process. Over this period, the vehicle has increasingly become a sophisticated computer-on-wheels, with the corresponding embedded applications and remote access functions for a wide range of vehicle related services. Supported by these legislative requirements, the aftermarket has found a way to survive and thrive, 14 AFTERMARKET FEBRUARY 2022 BUSINESS www.aftermarketonline.net A SECURE FUTURE? Access to data, and to the vehicle itself is going to be one of the key battlegrounds for the automotive aftermarket in the 2020s